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s0fist’s macaronics TAC 2014 ES/FR/DE

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s0fist
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5047 days ago

260 posts - 445 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, English
Studies: Sign Language, German, Spanish, French

 
 Message 17 of 25
06 January 2014 at 7:07pm | IP Logged 
To agantik: thanks for dropping by looking forward to your leadership in team French.

To DamedesLangues: thanks for dropping by, I'm looking forward to being your teammate in French/German (and Spanish even though we chose different teams).

--------------
To clarify: My plan isn't from scratch to B2 in 5 languages in a year.

#1 priority Spanish/French/German : get to intermediate.
This is my main goal for the year 2014. Study all 3 simultaneously instead of alternating them.
My plan is to get as high into intermediate in S/F/G (B1 or B2, isn't that important to me).
My Spanish is already on the intermediate plateau (passive skills at least), has been there for almost a year, although I don't feel comfortable calling myself intermediate yet.
I've studied German in high school for a few years. And on and off in the past year, alternating with French and Spanish.
I expect to make the least progress in German and the most progress in Spanish by the end of the year.


#2 priority RSL
I'm not a beginner in RSL and honestly it's much easier than learning a regular language.
IMHO learning a sign language is more like learning Esperanto (which I've never done personally), or possibly easier. Or maybe it just feels that way since I've already spent more than a decade half-heartedly learning it.
I'm not trying to become an interpreter, just want to communicate with my family.
So my real goal in RSL is to learn 2-3k words (whatever I can find that I don't already know) by the time of my next trip to Russia.


#3 priority Japanese : I "hope" to get to A2.
I've started and dropped it 3-4 times in the past decade.
No real plan this year. Just get as much of a base as I have time for.


#4 Ukrainian as wanderlust and entertainment
Ukrainian isn't a priority for me this year, or at all really.
I'm not "really" a beginner in Ukrainian. Ukrainian has >80% common vocabulary with Russian.
So my goal is to just start reading books and watching movies and get as much passive competency as I can while enjoying myself this year.
Whenever I feel like, I can ask my Ukrainian friends to practice with me or not,
but really I can always use Russian with them anyway, especially since they seem to prefer it.
I don't really know how far my passive knowledge of Russian with a little bit of reading/watching practice will get me, A2/B1/B2/C1 so be it.

--------------

Finally, don't forget setting goals is as much about posturing to yourself/others and reaching for the stars.
If you never aim, you can't hit your mark.

1 person has voted this message useful



s0fist
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5047 days ago

260 posts - 445 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, English
Studies: Sign Language, German, Spanish, French

 
 Message 18 of 25
06 January 2014 at 7:10pm | IP Logged 
I've been thinking of prioritizing TAC teammates with logs who are learning several languages in common with me (Spanish/French/German)+(Japanese/Ukrainian).
And there's a lot of them.
I will try to follow everyone's logs, though. Once I figure out a good way of doing so.


So far I've followed these TAC 2014 teammates (3+ languages in common):

Anya Anya *RU* /ES/FR/DE/JA/++/IT/PT/ZH/HUN/TUR/ ,
Bao Bao *DE* /ES/FR/JA/++/ZH/LAT/ ,
BaronBill BaronBill *EN* /ES/ /DE/++/FR/ZH/ ,
Bjorn Bjorn *NOR* /ES/FR/DE/ ,
Cavesa Cavesa *CZE* /ES/FR/DE/++/SWE/ ,
DamedesLangues DamedesLangues *EN* /ES/FR/DE/ ,
g-bod g-bod *EN* /FR/DE/JA/ ,
Kerrie Kerrie *EN* /ES/FR/JA/++/IT/KO/ ,
ryanl321 ryanl321 *EN* /ES/FR/DE/ ,
Serpent Serpent *RU* /ES/DE/UKR/++/FI/PT/IT/RO/PL/etc/ ,
Sh'Naya Sh'Naya *DE* /ES/FR/JA/ ,
suzukaze suzukaze *IT* /ES/FR/DE/++/SWE/JA/ ,


So far I've followed these TAC 2014 teammates (2 languages in common):

ancpem1 ancpem1 *EN* /ES/FR/++/RU/ELL/LAT/ ,
BAnna BAnna *EN* /ES/DE/++/RU/ ,
blackdahlia blackdahlia *EN* /FR/DE/ ,
danyal danyal *EN* /FR/DE/++/RU/IT/ARA/ ,
espejismo espejismo *RU* /ES/FR/++/PT/PER/ ,
Fuenf_Katzen Fuenf_Katzen *EN* /DE/UKR/++/PL/AFR/ ,
garyb garyb *EN* /ES/FR/++/IT/ ,
jhaberstro jhaberstro *EN* /ES/FR/++/PT/ ,
JIK JIK *EN*EST* /ES/DE/ ,
Josquin Josquin *DE* /JA/FR/++/IT/SWE/LAT/RU/ZH/etc/ ,
kanewai kanewai *EN* /ES/FR/++/JA/IT/TUR/ELL/LAT/etc/ ,
liammcg liammcg *EN* /FR/DE/++/etc/ ,
mrwarper mrwarper *ES* /DE/JA/++/RU/ ,
sctroyenne sctroyenne *EN* /ES/FR/++/etc/ ,
sillygoose1 sillygoose1 *EN* /ES/FR/DE/++/IT/ ,
tastyonions tastyonions *EN* /ES/FR/ ,


I promise I'll do my best to get to everyone once I have a little more time on my hands.

Edited by s0fist on 07 January 2014 at 12:15am

1 person has voted this message useful



dampingwire
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4666 days ago

1185 posts - 1513 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian*, French
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 19 of 25
06 January 2014 at 7:55pm | IP Logged 
s0fist wrote:
I will try to follow everyone's logs, though. Once I figure out a good
way of doing so.


I went to each of my team mates' logs and clicked the

Quote:
Watch this topic for replies


link at the bottom.

I have a rule to put all the HTLAL emails in their own folder and then once a day (if I
manage to discipline myself :-)) I work through the emails.


1 person has voted this message useful



s0fist
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5047 days ago

260 posts - 445 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, English
Studies: Sign Language, German, Spanish, French

 
 Message 21 of 25
07 January 2014 at 12:30am | IP Logged 
DamedesLangues wrote:
@ S0fist
I sincerely apologise. I reread my post, and it sounds too aggressive, which wasn't my intention. I'll certainly be spurring you on in your quest to conquer your goals! ;-)

If you at anytime want to share resources, tips or experiences, please e-mail me; damedeslanges[at]gmail[dot]com

À bientôt!


No worries, I'm not that easily offended and I didn't think your intention was aggression.
I always welcome any constructive criticism and corrections.

And I'm sure we'll get to share lots of resources and such in this TAC.


dampingwire wrote:

I went to each of my team mates' logs and clicked the
Quote:
Watch this topic for replies

link at the bottom.
I have a rule to put all the HTLAL emails in their own folder and then once a day (if I
manage to discipline myself :-)) I work through the emails.


I've been doing that. Pity this forum doesn't support RSS, that'd be nifty.
I've followed most teammates with several languages in common, I'm planning to follow the rest over the course of the week, time permitting.

At suggestion of another TAC member, I'm planning on using the "More" section under "Active Topics" page, to follow logs, instead of opening emails.
It allows to see topics which you are following or have posted in, sorted by last message's date. It's limited to 100 for free members but it should be enough, since it's limited to threads you're following instead of ALL new threads. Fairly useful, imho.
3 persons have voted this message useful



dampingwire
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4666 days ago

1185 posts - 1513 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian*, French
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 22 of 25
07 January 2014 at 12:37am | IP Logged 
s0fist wrote:
At suggestion of another TAC member, I'm planning on using the "More"
section under "Active Topics" page, to follow logs, instead of opening emails.
It allows to see topics which you are following or have posted in, sorted by last
message's date. It's limited to 100 for free members but it should be enough, since it's
limited to threads you're following instead of ALL new threads. Fairly useful, imho.


Incredibly useful and a great find. I wonder what other useful features might be lurking
under otherwise innocuous labels! (As far RSS, yes it would be great but this forum is
too old for something invented only as recently as the millennium :-))


1 person has voted this message useful



s0fist
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5047 days ago

260 posts - 445 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, English
Studies: Sign Language, German, Spanish, French

 
 Message 23 of 25
27 January 2014 at 9:49pm | IP Logged 
I've tried duolingo for about a week or two. My impression so far is that it's basically a free version of Rosetta Stone with a bit of social networking glued on top. Generally speaking, I'm not a big fan of drills (I think they're useful, but not very enjoyable imho), like FSI/RS, like duolingo is. But I feel like every now and again, I might employ duolingo in the future, since it covers Spanish/French/German and I can type fast enough that it's fun to practice writing. Another peculiarity is that sometimes the site is blindingly fast at checking your answers and other times, it is very slow, to the point where it's too much to bear. Very much like RS the first week of duolingo was fun, but after a while the initial rush faded a bit. I guess I'll see how much enthusiasm remains as time passes. Also so far I haven't really gotten to the point where I'm learning stuff on duolingo, instead of reinforcing stuff that I'd already learned through other courses. I'm bound to hit the new stuff in German pretty fast if I keep going, so I guess I'll see how that goes.


After a prolonged break, I'm back to working out, which means I'm back to listening audio courses in the gym. Yay for L2 music, and Pimsleur, and MT, and Linguaphone, and music. And yay for exercise battling it out with seasonal affective disorder.


Overall, I think Anki has been the most consistent language learning practice over these past two or three weeks. I've been slowly reducing anki usage from shoot-for-the-stars numbers to what is more manageable.


Overall I am still not as consistent as I want to be. I skip this or that language on any given day. I'm trying to get used to studying SPA/FRE/GER daily and ENG/RUS/RSL/UKR/JAP when the mood strikes me (1-2 times a week). I haven't started on UKR/JAP though, waiting until I'm more comfortable with everything else before I add it to the mix. So far I am mostly doing reviews, which may be making it more boring for me. But if I can make it through the relatively boring parts and create this habit, I feel like it will get easier.

I've been pondering incorporating some kind of reward technique to make LL practice more consistent and enjoyable (chocolate or nicotine). If anyone's tried that (successfully or not), please leave a comment or send me a PM, I'm pretty curious about the best way of doing that.


Lastly, I'd like to express my sorrow for the French team breaking up into two, as the Spanish team did early on. Not that that's going to prevent anyone from following both teams, but it's an added chore. Here's hoping the other teams don't follow their examples.


Edit: I've been considering trying Assimil again. I tried it once before and couldn't quite get into it, but I think it might be better preparation for reading than other courses, so I was thinking about giving it a try.

Edited by s0fist on 27 January 2014 at 10:00pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Crush
Tetraglot
Senior Member
ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5866 days ago

1622 posts - 2299 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto
Studies: Basque

 
 Message 24 of 25
12 February 2014 at 9:05am | IP Logged 
What have you been up to the last couple weeks? Any updates? I also think Assimil is a great course for reading or just comprehension in general. Using it to activate skills has been a bit boring for me, though. I generally skip the "active" way as the 5-15 minutes quickly turns into an hour as lessons get longer and more complicated. The end of the Catalan course had lessons spoken relatively quickly that lasted over 7 minutes!


1 person has voted this message useful



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